In U.S. Pat. No. 5,107,532 to Hansen, et al., a system is described to trace conductors in a telephone wiring system for a building. The tracing of conductors is done between terminal blocks by use of trace signals placed onto conductors by a controller/supervisor system using a local area network.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,166,970 teaches a device with which two persons can communicate and establish a label designation for the ends of a circuit over which they communicate.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,968,929 to Hanck, et al., describes the use of loops to interrogate cable plug connections.
In optical fiber communication systems, it is not unusual to have a large number of external optical fibers enter a communication center. The fibers are terminated at a fixed position in a panel. An optical fiber patch panel is then used with optical fiber patch cables to couple the optical fibers to various endpoints. The optical fiber patch cables typically are provided with fiber connectors, such as of the ESCON push-on, pull-off type that mesh with optical connectors in a panel where the external fibers are terminated.
In a common application for an optical fiber patch panel, the incoming and outgoing optical fibers are terminated at fixed positions of a fiber terminal panel. Once the fibers are so terminated, no further changes in position occurs or is permitted since the fiber ends frequently are part of a very long fiber cable that may originate or terminate at a remote location that can be miles away or at some other floor, or at another portion of the same room in a building. An optical fiber patch panel is then relied upon to accommodate the physical connection of incoming and outgoing optical fibers to various equipments. A change in the equipment to which an optical fiber must be connected or a reconfiguration of the communication system of which the optical fibers are a part can then be accommodated with appropriate changes at the optical patch panel.
The management of an optical fiber patch system requires maintenance of a record of connections and disconnections. The record can be kept on a computer, a log, or status board. If an event occurs and patch connections are altered, it frequently happens that the changes are not recorded or some are incorrectly recorded. As a result, the connection status map becomes inaccurate, and the manager of the communication center loses confidence in the status map.
Another problem arises because of the lack of security for the optical fiber patch system. If any unauthorized modification to the patch configuration is made, it will not be recognized or recorded. It will then not be noticed until a physical inventory is made.
Human errors frequently arise in making optical fiber patch connections. A vital link can be mistakenly disconnected or a wrong connection made, resulting in extensive and often expensive communication problems.
Another problem arises when optical fiber connections are broken. The connector with the active optical fiber then may emit an optical beam that can be particularly potentially harmful when a high power optical laser beam is being passed through. Inadvertent motions of the active connector may result in an injury. An optical fiber connection is needed with which such injury can be avoided.